


Three Meetings Before Luck

by the_wordbutler



Category: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Genre: F/M, is it rpf when only one person is real?, the disaster show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cal Shanley meets Allison Janney twice before the disaster show. </p><p>But, like they say, third time's the charm. Right?</p><p>Right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Meetings Before Luck

Cal meets Allison on a Friday. He can’t say it’s a moment that stands out in history. The dress is already ten minutes over in the first act and he’s running a repaired mic down to the floor when he nearly runs into a woman who, barefoot, would make Danny Tripp look like Bilbo Baggins. 

“Sorry,” he says, and rushes past. 

He’s vaguely aware of the fact that he’s seen her before. 

On Tuesday, when he’s going over missed cues with one of the sound guys, Danny hangs his head in the door. 

“Hear you almost mowed Allison Janney down during dress,” he says with a little grin. 

“Who?” asks Cal. He doesn’t watch television. No interest, working in it.

Danny shakes his head and wanders out the door.

 

Cal only really sees Allison the next time on the Friday – his life is a series of Fridays, circling the drain – after her second appearance on the show. He knows she’s another star, a big name on the broadcast circuit. She smiles at him and comes over during the rap party. “Good show,” she says.

Cal should keep walking.

Instead, he smiles and shakes her hand. “I should be saying it to you. I just tell people when to flip the cue cards.”

“I thought the propmaster does that,” she teases.

“I was trying to make it simple before you go engage sound technician number three in conversation. Be careful. He’s new and cries a lot.”

Allison laughs. Cal shouldn’t think her laugh is soft and sweet. Cal makes it a point not to get to know guest stars. It’s easy to avoid being star struck when it’s Harriet or Simon. They’re old friends, drinking buddies, not real stars. But when Patrick Stewart, Patricia Heaton, Harrison Ford, and Allison Janney show up on your doorstep, you – as a production manager, a few steps beneath their league (in the way that tee-ball is a few steps between the majors) – either crumble, star-struck, or avoid. 

Cal avoids. 

“Tell me about what you do,” Allison says. It’s a temptation. 

“You don’t want to hear about that. I think Harriet’s waving to you, you should – “

“You think just because I work in television, I’m not interested?”

“It’s my job and I’m barely interested,” Cal admits. 

Allison laughs again and loops her arm in his. “Tell me over one glass of wine, and if I’m bored, I’ll just go for a refill and never come back.”

So, Cal – polite if nothing else – tells her. And when the conversation about his job dries up along with the wine, Allison fetches refills and the conversation continues. He ends up talking about the twins and the divorce, Margaret’s job in San Diego and the practical realities of raising two teenagers and not remembering anything about being one except for your trips to World War II museums, and Allison smiles and sympathizes. By the end of the night, she’s discussing her own relationship – a failing one, or so she claims, though, “I won’t know it’s a failure until one of us moves out!” – and the bottle they’ve been sharing for the last hour is nearly empty.

It matches the room they’re sitting in. 

“I should go,” Allison says, once she consults her watch. Tom Jeter, a new cast member, a smart younger guy with big ideas and a bigger grin, announces as he comes back in, “It’s dawn!”

Cal laughs. “Don’t you film today?”

“Every day. At least they don’t put me in heels anymore.” She rises, Cal with her, and he walks her towards the back entrance. She’s driven herself, he realizes. 

He finds that sexy. 

“Thanks for the conversation,” he says when he realizes there is nothing else to say and that they’re standing in front of the door, too close to one another for a divorced production manager and a six-foot-tall, spoken-for actress. 

“Thank you,” Allison replies. “Maybe I’ll host again.”

“I hope so,” Cal says, too quickly and with too big a grin. 

“You’re sweet.”

The last thing Cal has of Allison is a brief kiss on the cheek and the spot where the scent of her perfume lingers before it fades entirely away.

 

And then, there was the disaster show.

“I don’t believe you made me go through with that!” she is yelling – yes, yelling – at Cal as she pulls off the earrings and throws – yes, throws – them at the vanity. “In the last three hours I have moved this show to New York, offered my pants, become a YouTube spectacle, was shot while trying to seduce James Bond, and was molested by a German Shepherd!”

“In defense of YouTube,” Cal puts in, leaning against the doorjamb and watching her, “the rest of them will be on there too. And I don’t blame the dog.”

Allison turns and tries, very hard, to glare at him, but the expression completely breaks. Instead, she smiles almost bashfully and turns back to the vanity. 

“You did good,” Cal says. The door slides shut, because he was the only thing holding it open. “You always do good, but you did better than most people could expect for this. I’d give it a six.”

“Out of ten.”

“Out of five.”

Allison looks over her shoulder at him. “You’re not allowed to do that. I’m mad at you. You’re on my list.”

“I hear it’s a long list.”

“You put _flamingos_ on the graphics.”

“I bought your boxed set. Do you have a point?”

There’s a tension in the room that Cal hasn’t noticed before. Of course, it’s hard to notice something with a person you’ve only really seen three times, the first being an accidental brush and the second being a night-long conversation. This, again, is different. This is standing at her shoulder and smelling the perfume and meeting eyes carefully. Production managers, actresses, it’s stripped away. His name is Cal. Hers is Allison. And – 

“You have nice eyes.”

Allison blinks them, long lashes and all.

“I thought you didn’t like television,” she says after a long moment of watching him. 

Cal smiles slightly, wryly, and pushes up his glasses. “I made an exception. You remember that conversation?”

“Every word of it.”

Cal wonders if these are the moments that six-ninety-nine mystery authors talk about as having tension you could “cut with a knife”. 

But he doesn’t look away. “There’s a rap party we’re missing.”

“So there is.”

For a moment, that’s it. Two sentences and a block of time. When Allison turns, he’s sure she’s reaching for something. When he leans up, he’s sure it’s to stretch. When their lips meet, he realizes that she’s still wearing gloss and smells incredibly like flowers and stage blood. 

He actually likes the smell of stage blood. 

“Cal, are you in here?” It’s Matt’s voice, and the door opens just in time for him to witness a glorious sight worthy of the disaster that was the night: Cal Shanley literally falling over a stool, face-first, as he leaps away from Allison. 

He crawls onto his knees and, “Look! I found the back to your earring! Oh, hey, Matt!”

Matt stares at him for a moment. 

At least he’s learned something from writing sketch comedy for so long: sometimes, the jokes just aren’t funny.

“Danny got the prop guys back,” Matt finally says.

“Great!” Cal clambers to his feet and hands over the invisible earring back. “What’d he have to do?”

“They’re getting raises that will probably come out of my salary. I need a drink. See you upstairs?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there!”

The way his cheeks hurt from grinning, Cal can only imagine how he looks to Matt. Matt gives him a tight smile and looks at Allison. “Good show.”

“Yeah.” Said with all the enthusiasm as someone who was just told that the _good_ news was that they had syphilis.

When the door closes over, Cal realizes that his cheeks don’t hurt anymore. They just feel warm. He is forty-five years old. Warm cheeks need not apply. He left them with his wet dreams and high-pitched voice.

“I should go,” he says, after he realizes that he’s still standing over a turned-up stool and he’s still got his hand wrapped around Allison’s fingers from when he passed her the piece of jewelry that never was.

Allison looks at him for a long moment. “I don’t want to be here,” she says at last. “Why don’t we go upstairs, say goodnight, and then you take me home?”

“I – “

“Cal.” It’s all seriousness in her tone. It is _The West Wing_ quality seriousness. C.J. Cregg would be proud of Allison’s tone of voice. “You owe me at _least_ a drink in the venue of my choice.”

He smiles. “I’ll cop to that.”

“And if you play your cards right,” she continues, “you might not have to pay _all_ your debts in one night.”

“But if I had to?”

“It’d be a long night. I’ll see you upstairs in ten.”

Cal smirks as he lets himself out of the dressing room. Matt is standing in the hallway, hands in his pockets, looking at him with that same knowing _look_ that Matt gets when he realizes something suspicious has been going on under his nose and feels more like Sherlock Holmes than Captain Obvious for finally noticing it. 

“Should I tell your staff you won’t be in tomorrow?” he asks, grinning suddenly.

“You can tell my staff anything you want,” Cal replies, heading for the stairs. “But start with….”

He considers it for a moment. Third time’s the charm? Being star-struck isn’t so bad? Intimate strangers are the best kinds of friends? Flamingos were lovely birds?

At the bottom of the stairs, Matt is waiting.

“Tell them: god bless the disaster show.”


End file.
